ENTRIES are now open for the MTBO World Championship team trials

Double world mtbo champion from 2009, Adrian Jackson displayed his excellent endurance and crosscountry skills recently in winning the prestigious Otway Odyssey 100Km race. The race goes from Apollo Bay (Victoria) up to Forrest, covering some 3000 metres of climb and there were 1000 riders including all the best elite riders currently racing. AJ had previously finished 4th and 5th in this race.

His comments were:
“I think I just rode a smart race and was lucky some others had problems.

Photo: Rapid Ascent

I was a minute or so down on the lead group over the road section at about 25Km, but by the 40Km point had caught back up after riding on my own for 10-15Km or so.

I was feeling really good on the climbs and also on the singletrack loops. I was on the front most of the time, which was a perfect strategy as I was putting little gaps into the others all the time without any effort by just being faster and smoother through the tight sections.

At about 75Km I actually put in an acceleration and got a good gap quite quickly. I could still see Lachlan Norris behind me starting the last 13Km loop and was expecting him to catch me on the open road climb, but I actually pulled away from him to finish about 2 min up by the end.”